ABSTRACT
Education is the most signifi cant infl uence on the culture, politics and economies of societies and nation states. We know this, in part, because changes in political regimes are often accompanied by school closings; massive or subtle rewriting of the curriculum; reorganization of administrative structures and powers; changes, in degree, of the autonomy of teachers and academics in relation to school, university or governing administrations; redefi ned relationships between government agendas and schooling practices; and the articulation of new ideological, political and economic directions for education. In brief, history shows that the processes and content of what is taught, by whom, to whom, when, where, how, and under what circumstances is understood by those on every point along diverging political trajectories to be a powerful social force. The corollary is that, regardless of what words are invoked to justify their enforcement or what claims to “objectivity” are made by the enforcers, changes made to the processes of schooling are never innocent. Transformations in educational provision, whether articulated through the curriculum or imposed by policy,2 are always political acts, made all the more powerful when their intentions are hidden by an uninterrogated language of educational reform for improvement.3
